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It happens to the best of us: you’ve worked hard to build a daily routine that lets you maximize every second of every day. You’ve mastered the fine art of working smarter, not harder, and everyone in the office is jealous of your productivity skills. Then, that upcoming business trip (or even vacation) gets slotted on the calendar and threatens to jeopardize everything you’ve built up to this point.

Take a deep breath and relax. Staying as productive as humanly possible while on-the-go is a challenge, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If you want to make the best use of your time while you’re out of the office, here are four simple, yet essential, tips you’ll want to focus on.

1) Beware of Those Time Zones

You know how it takes everyone a few days to recovery from the hour gained or lost due to Daylight Savings Time? Time zones are even worse for your productivity, especially if you’re not a frequent traveler. If you’re going to be headed across the country (or even across the world), the first thing you should do is update all of your devices to local time. You’re the one out of the office, so the burden is on you to adapt, not everyone else. Most “smart” devices have a feature in the “Settings” application that will update to local time automatically as soon as you connect to your first Wi-Fi network once you arrive.

2) Cloud Storage Is Your Friend

If you’re not already embracing the wonders of cloud-based storage services like Dropbox, now would be the time to start. Not only does it make sure that all of your documents sync to all of your devices, but many services (like Dropbox for Business) include built-in collaboration features that let multiple people edit the same documents at the same time. Whether you’re on a business trip or are on vacation, if something needs to be approved or modified while you’re waiting for your flight to take off, you’ll still have the opportunity.

3) Don’t Try to Adapt Your Routine. Make a New One

Regardless of where you’re headed, your instinct may be to take your daily routine, the one you worked so hard to build and hone, and cram it into a travel-shaped box. This is an instinct that you should fight at all costs. Don’t pretend that nothing has changed just because you’re going to be away from the office for a few days. That’s how mistakes are made. Instead, think about the obligations you have on your trip and find opportunities to remain productive around those scheduled demands. You’ll have a much better chance at building a new, temporary routine that works for the specifics of the situation you find yourself in.

4) The Devil Is (NOT) in the Details

When you’re hard at work in the office, you tend to have more time to pay attention to the little details of the task at hand. It’s something that goes hand-in-hand with being a career-driven professional. The problem is that this is almost always a bad idea. Striving for perfection 100% of the time is a great way to get less done in a day than you need to.

Business leaders of yesteryear can teach us lessons even today. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who dominated shipping and railroads, John Pierpont “J.P.” Morgan, who built a financial empire on investments and banking, Mary Kay Ash, who founded the exceptionally successful company Mary Kay Cosmetics, and John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil as was America’s very first billionaire are all worthy of admiration and have lessons they can teach us. Today, though, let’s look at one businessman, in particular, Henry Ford.

Who Was Henry Ford And How Did He Make An Impact in The Country?

Henry Ford, born in 1863, was a U.S. Industrialist who revolutionized automobile production, which allowed his company to mass produce cars, thus bringing the price down. This, in turn, allowed more regular folks to purchase cars and led to Ford Motors becoming hugely successful. In essence, Ford did more than creating a successful company; he revolutionized the entire transportation industry. Before his changes were implemented, most people were unable to afford such a luxury. Therefore, he took a product that was not widespread and made it applicable for the average consumer, thus changing the entire landscape of the country in several ways. Ford was able to achieve this success thanks to a few methods he applied within his business. These ideas are applicable to any type of business and can teach us as business professionals and entrepreneurs lessons on success even today:

Innovation is Everything: When it comes to innovation, Henry most certainly knew what he was doing. He utilized an assembly line technique that forever altered the way automobiles were produced. It’s worth noting that he was not the inventor of said assembly line. He only created an innovative way to implement the technique within his business. This is a great lesson we can learn from him today. You don’t have to come up with the idea or product in order to figure out a new way to utilize it.

Don’t be Afraid to Specialize And Offer Solutions to Undiscovered Problems: Henry Ford understood his market and specialized in it. He understood that it’s hard to find success when remaining too generic. He also understood his customer base better than they understood themselves. He was able to offer a product as a solution to a problem that his customer base didn’t even realize they had. He once stated, “If I had simply asked people what they wanted, they would have asked me for faster horses.”

Efficiency is Vital: Ford was such a believer in efficiency that he is credited with the creation of “Fordism.” This term basically describes a system of mass production that is both standardized and efficient. He understood the importance of keeping his workers productive and achieving a maximum output. He was able to do this, in part, by providing incentives. These incentives, which included a reduced workweek and better wages, resulted in worker loyalty and efficiency.

Don’t be Afraid to Learn Something New: Henry Ford once said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Henry Ford was personally committed to learning. He was never content to learn all he could about a subject and just stay there. He didn’t want to just “be,” he wanted to grow. This is likely how he was able to come up with such innovative ideas because he never got stuck thinking or acting a certain way. Instead, Ford was always up for a new challenge. We would do well to emulate this in our own professional lives.

There are countless other lessons we can glean from Henry Ford and other businessmen and women like him who revolutionized their industries and achieved amazing success.

The important point to remember is that they all stepped out, took a risk, and believed in their goals. That is the foundation for any great success.

Imagine taking several children, one at a time, into a room, where you’ve placed a tantalizing marshmallow on a table. You tell the children that if they can resist eating the delicious sweet sitting in front of them while you step out of the room for a few minutes, they can have two when you return. If the child can’t wait, they can eat the first marshmallow whenever they want, but they won’t get the second marshmallow when you return.

That’s exactly the experiment researchers at Stanford performed in the late 1960s. The footage they obtained of the children was quite fascinating. Some children looked away from the treat in front of them, while others tried to distract themselves by kicking the table or fiddling with their hair. Some of the children poked or stroked the marshmallow.

Years later, the researchers were able to make the connection that the children most capable of delaying gratification were the ones who were also more likely to succeed in school, resist other temptations in life (such as drugs or excessive alcohol), and avoid having behavioral problems. Clearly, the ability to delay gratification is significantly linked to personal success.

Adults and delayed gratification

Hopefully, most adults can be left alone with a marshmallow and avoid eating it when the situation calls for it, but that doesn’t mean most adults have mastered self control and delayed gratification. It’s always tempting to accept immediate pleasure or reward rather than wait for something more important down the line. We all have different areas where we know we would struggle to resist temptation. Just like the children in this experiment, however, we need to keep in mind the larger picture and see the good that can come from waiting.

What marshmallows have to do with business success

Business is all about being able to see the big picture. For companies to be successful, they have to be able to look beyond the current options and see where they want to go in the future. Sometimes, achieving these long-term goals means being able to pass over smaller rewards and delay gratification for the greater good.

For example, some companies may find themselves tempted to maintain their traditional marketing techniques rather than branching out into social media and inbound marketing. Sure, the company may continue to find occasional new customers, but that’s the small reward. The fact is the Internet is now critical for reaching an ever-growing portion of the consumer base. While entering the world of Internet marketing may require patience and extra work upfront, the reward companies receive from reaching their customers online can be enormous.

Children are not known for their patience, and an experiment first done in the 1960s has shown that many struggle with delayed gratification, even when the promised reward is sweet. While adults may have more self control than a child, we can still struggle sometimes to wait for potential opportunities to come to fruition.

When making business decisions, it’s always important to determine goals and then keep your eyes on the prize. Opportunities abound for companies that exercise patience and work toward a larger reward. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Instead, challenge yourself to think big and build the business of your dreams.

Innovation is important for any successful marketing campaign. No company will remain on top if it continues to use outdated marketing techniques. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should always look for the latest and greatest techniques. There are as many marketing schools of thought as there are marketing professionals. The key to successfully updating and innovating a marketing strategy is to find the balance between consistency and a willingness to try something new.

Identifying what’s already working

To know when it’s appropriate to change strategies and find ways to innovate, you must first evaluate how your original strategies are working. There are a variety of techniques you can use to judge the success of your marketing campaigns, including:

Share of voice

This is a great way to see how much ‘buzz’ a marketing campaign is generating. Share of voice essentially monitors how much the consumer base is discussing your company compared to the amount of time they spend speaking about your competitors. This information can help you determine how prevalent your brand is online, how familiar your name is to potential customers, and even how positively or negatively people think of your brand online. Free tools like Social Mention and Google Alerts are a great place to start.

Website traffic

Gauge how frequently people visit your company website now compared to how many page views you received before the campaign began.

Spikes in business

After implementing certain marketing techniques, such as a direct mail marketing campaign, watch for spikes in business compared to previous months.

Once you’ve determined the success of your marketing campaigns, you’ll have a more accurate picture of what styles work best for you and your customers.

The value of remaining consistent

Continually changing your marketing strategies is rarely an effective approach. Marketing is all about getting your brand name in front of customers and convincing them that you’re the company to turn to when they need the products or services you sell. Marketing campaigns that continually change are going to struggle with the basic goal of getting customers to recognize your brand. If your message and means of communication are constantly changing, potential customers will have a harder time trying to absorb what you’re saying. If you try to use every marketing strategy, nothing will stick, and you’ll end up spinning your wheels.

Successfully walking the line between consistency and innovation

When you’re looking to successfully blend consistency and innovation, you must determine what works for you and branch out slowly from there. Isolate which techniques are working best. Is it Facebook? Is it direct mail marketing? Whatever the answer, that should be the basis for your marketing campaign.

Now, focus on learning how to take those specific strategies to the next level. Look for ways to shrink the sales cycle, so potential buyers are converted into paying customers more quickly and more efficiently. Investigate ways you can help that portion of your campaign reach more people. If direct mail has been a huge success, try to pinpoint what it is about the demographic you’ve chosen that has made the campaign so great, and then find more people who fit that demographic. If Facebook has brought in many new leads, determine what types of content are attracting the most attention, and work on developing similar lines. Make it easier for customers on social media to enter the sales funnel and improve ROI.

Innovation should never be done blindly. It should be done with specific goals in mind and to help improve existing successful practices. That doesn’t mean you should resist trying something new, just that it should be done in a controlled manner and should not replace what has already been working. Innovation must work hand in hand with consistency if you hope to achieve the highest level of success.

The amount of information out there can seem overwhelming, but whether you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, or manager, it’s essential to keep up.

Now, here’s the good news: We’re here to make it easy for you to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. We’ve searched the web for the best, brightest, and most innovative business blogs out there. Add these top blogs to your reading list for a simple way to stay in the loop!

This New York Times blog is all about small business, from best practices to breaking trends. Written by entrepreneurs, business owners, and experts from a range of fields, You’re the Boss provides a place for small business owners to connect, share their successes (and mistakes), and compare notes from the battlefield.

Seth Godin, a.k.a. marketing guru extraordinaire, provides a wide range of tips, ideas, advice, and general musings on a range of topics. The best thing about Godin’s, blog, however, is simply his quirky, creative writing style, which allows him to be motivational, inspirational, and insightful without ever slipping into cheesy territory.

Not only is Workshifting beautifully designed, but its content is hyper-focused on its readers’ needs and interests. Content melds work and lifestyle topics relevant to today’s on-the-move workforce, with an emphasis on the issues that affect work-from-home, flex schedule, and other employees who work outside the office environment.

With accolades from sources such as the Stevie Awards, Inc., and Forbes, She Takes on the World offers tips of the trade with a focus on female entrepreneurs. Along with content from founder Natalie McNeill, this blog offers content from a series of guest bloggers, expert advice from industry leaders, and articles about work-life balance. Yes, it’s geared toward women in business, but hey, it’s got a lot of great content for guys, too.

For the latest in news from the tech front, turn to Pando Daily. Founded by Sarah Lacy — formerly of TechCrunch — this comprehensive blog serves as a journal of record for Silicon Valley. Its focus on start-ups, the tech industry, social media, marketing, and almost everything else that impacts the business world makes for interesting reading, as do its interviews with and features by industry insiders.

Naked Capitalism offers a no-holds-barred look at the current state of the economy and the financial industry, and how it affects business. Economists, investment bankers, political advisors, and journalists make up the contributor list. Expect to put on your critical thinking cap when you sit down to read this thought-provoking blog.

For a clear picture of the confluence of digital marketing and social media, turn to Anita Loomba’s blog. Offering helpful tips, best practices, success stories, and the latest in industry news, Loomba covers the ever-changing, always increasing influence of social media and business marketing in her accessible blog.

Author, former Apple marketing guru, venture capitalist, and all-around smarty Guy Kawasaki offers hands-on advice to entrepreneurs in his How to Change the World blog. Expect to be motivated and inspired, but in a practical, realistic way.

Finally, for a dose of humor to lighten the workweek, give Peter Shankman’s blog a read. An angel investor and entrepreneur, Shankman has a, shall we say, creative approach to the world of business, and his entertaining writing style reflects it. Plus, he’s got some good advice — so give it a try.

If your planning to re-brand your business (whether through a name change, a new logo, a business merger, or some other means), remember the name and/or logo is not the only thing that changes. Re-branding can be a large-scale operation that involves effort from multiple departments. While your to-do list may seem endless, here are a few of the top items to consider to ensure your re-branding process runs smoothly:

Create a list of all printed collateral that needs to be updated (such as letterhead, envelopes, business cards, flyers, brochures, labels, forms, notepads, and packaging). Give us (Minuteman Press-Fort Myers) a call anytime if you have questions about turnaround times, company colors, logo changes, quantity purchase discounts, or anything else related to your printing needs.

Keep customers in the loop by mailing “we’re changing our name” postcards, including a blurb in your newsletter, and providing social media mentions (among other things).

Update employee bios. Add your new name to each employee’s company bio to show the transition. For example, “Mark Davis has worked at XYZ Company since it was founded in 1989, when it was called ABC Company.”

Change your name and logo on invoices, accounting templates, quote preparation software, and other types of reporting software.

If you’re considering a web domain name change, make sure the new domain name is available before switching, and then set up your old web address to forward automatically to your new website to ensure a smooth transition.

Update email addresses and consider using an auto-responder to remind people to update their email address books. Also update email signatures and inform readers your address will be changing so they can update their spam blockers — especially if you send email newsletters.

Ensure your phone service provider has the correct company name, so it shows up correctly on caller ID.

Inform all professional organizations, business groups, subscription services, and other interested parties of your name change.

Update on-hold marketing messages and voice mail messages. Consider using both names with a greeting such as: “Thanks for calling XYZ Company, formerly known as ABC Company.”

We know that re-branding can be a daunting task, but you don’t need to go it alone. Our team of printing professionals can help you every step of the way. When it comes to updating your print collateral, we’re here to help, from developing creative new ideas to carrying the finished products to your document storage area. Give us a call today.

When it comes to content marketing, you can try all the advertising, promotional, and PR ploys, but authenticityremains key. What is authenticity, you might ask? It means staying true to your business values:

It may sound like a no-brainer, but very few companies are able to withstand internal pressures or external turbulence without losing their authenticity, according to a recent study.

How to apply authenticity
It all starts from the top, so set a vision that your company’s personnel understand, embrace, and can implement. Then ensure that your “authenticity” motto aligns with your business goals, so you can clearly demonstrate to stakeholders such as investors and lenders that you have a growth strategy in place. Here’s how to do that:

Be real
Sounds easy, right? But you’d be surprised how many companies lose their operational soul, delve into every sector deemed profitable, or adopt strategies that are counter to their mission. Define what your business does — its mission and vision — and stick to those core values.

Be charitable
Ever heard of something called “corporate social responsibility”? Well, CSR is one way an organization can give back to society-at-large and the communities in which it does business. Consumers love that, and it’s a win-win for both the company and the aid recipients.

Be consistent
Don’t give mixed messages that might lead to mistrust and confusion, both of which could make you lose customers down the road. Stay close to your values, mission, and vision as much as possible. For example, Apple’s tagline is “Think different.” All of the company’s products and services somewhat match that slogan.

Back up what you say
To build trust and customer loyalty, your word must be credible. If you want to establish a solid reputation, make sure your company delivers on its operational commitments. For example, if “Maintain customer satisfaction 24/7” is your tagline, prove it to patrons in the way your handle things like complaints, merchandise delivery, and service quality.

Be responsive
The last thing you want is bad press, so don’t let word-of-mouth tarnish the reputation you’ve spent years, if not decades, building and growing. Be quick in handling customer inquiries as well as questions from any other relevant party. Think regulators, business partners, activists, and consumer groups.

Respect privacy
Build solid privacy practices in the way your company operates, especially when it comes to archiving online data. In this age, everything business-related is kept on the “cloud,” so make sure your cloud provider has implemented effective policies to safeguard your company’s data, as well as your customers’ private information.

Cultivate your client base
To grow your business, you must cultivate your clientele. These include your existing and past customers, along with a mishmash of interested parties ranging from prospects to social media followers. It’s important to cultivate fans because, while some may be unable to buy your product or service today, they definitely will in the future. Plus, they’ll encourage their friends to do the same.

Polish your reputation
Don’t spare any opportunity to polish your reputation, establish authority in your industry, or seize on a good PR occasion. Being authentic also means burnishing that authenticity every now and then, so everyone will take notice, including your competito